We Told You So -More Nuclear States
by James Buchanan
For the past few decades the US has helped Israel beat down any of its Muslim neighbors, who looked like they may want to attain nuclear parity with the Zionist bandit state. There are literally dozens of nations in the world who operate nuclear reactors, but only a handful of these nations have gone on to spend billions of dollars to develop nuclear bombs. The one thing which can motivate a government to spend the money to try to build a nuclear weapon is an outside threat. Thanks to Bush’s preemptive war on Iraq, many nations now see the US as a rogue nation and a very real outside threat. The best way to avoid a nuclear build up is to maintain peace around the world. By invading Iraq, the United States has inspired six Arab nations to go ahead and develop nuclear programs, including even some friendly Arab nations.
A recent news article reports “THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology. The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa. The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest. All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.”
Even if two opposing sides develop nuclear weapons, it may not be that big a deal. Pakistan and India got into an arms race with each other and both have nuclear weapons and missiles to launch them. The threat of mutual assured destruction however works in the Third World just as well as it worked between the Soviet Union and America.
The one enormous historical inconsistency has been the nation of Israel. They have declared the right to attack any nation they don’t like, which tries to develop nuclear power. If the US had adopted this policy, we would have dropped nuclear bombs all over the Soviet Union in the 1940s to try to destroy their nuclear reactors. The Soviets might have responded with an attack delivering nerve gas and biological agents.
It should be noted that dozens of nations have turned on nuclear reactors because it makes economic sense. The nation of Iran has uranium deposits, which make a nuclear reactor especially appealing for them. There was no shrill chorus of criticism against Iran when the US was supporting the Shah in the 1970s. Iran was only a year or two away from turning on its nuclear reactors when the Shah was overthrown. The US then secretly supplied and encouraged Saddam Hussein to go to war against Iran in the 1980s and to bomb the partially built nuclear facilities at Busher.
The Israelis bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak on June 7th, 1981 killing a French national working at the site. Israel has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran over their nuclear program, and the US invasion of Iraq was -in part- due to Israeli paranoia that a nuclear program might still be going on there. The current war-mongering against Iran by the Bush regime results from Israeli paranoia about the Iranian nuclear reactors eventually being used for a weapons program.
One thing the Israelis never seem to consider is: What happens next? The US has deposed the Saddam Hussein regime. The Iraqis will eventually have self-rule without any of the sanctions previously imposed on Hussein. What if they decide to build a nuclear reactor? What if the new Iraqi government wants a nuclear weapons program?
Saudi Arabia and Egypt have enough oil revenue to finance successful atom bomb projects. What will the US do when these friendly Arab nations choose to develop the same weapons that Israel developed years ago? Will the US bomb Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia just to postpone the inevitable and to soothe Israeli paranoia? Maybe the Israelis should start behaving like all the other civilized nations of the world and start treating the Palestinians like human beings. If Israel continues to behave with arrogance and derision for their neighbors a nuclear war in the Mid East will be inevitable.